This story is PG 13 for some adult situations. There is a somewhat
steamy, (though NOT explicit,) dream encounter between Mulder
and Scully, so if that sort of thing gives you fits - even as a dream -
you can skip that part. This is not a "romance" in the accepted sense,
however, so please feel otherwise safe in proceeding.
Thank you to Tish Sears for all the editing help!
Comments welcome, critique encouraged, flames humbly accepted.
"Those Who Love" is posted in seven parts, all parts posted on
September 5, 1995.
Fox Mulder, and Dana Scully are the property of Ten Thirteen
Productions, lovingly borrowed without permission, and without
any intent to infringe, annoy or otherwise upset. The rest of the
characters are mine.
*****************************************************
*
THOSE WHO LOVE - Part 4
Mulder sat in silent thought as the waitress came and cleared
their dishes. As she did, a young woman carrying a guitar came out
into the small cleared space at the far end of the room, and took a
seat on a bar stool. The bartender set up a microphone for her, and
plugged it into a dusty amplifier that looked permanently part of the
decor. Mulder looked up and watched the goings on. The girl
looked like she might be a local college student, she was certainly too
young to *drink* in the place. Pretty girl, though, with bright green
eyes he could see from where he was sitting, and longish ash blonde
hair.
"Looks like we're going to be entertained," he said, changing
the subject, and trying to bury his general annoyance at the turn
events had taken. Scully was probably right. He would even admit
it, willingly enough, in a little while. He was too disappointed, right
at that moment, though, to feel reasonable. The distraction would do
him good.
"Want to stay for a while and listen?"
Scully watched as the young woman chatted with the
bartender, and plucked at her guitar, making last minute adjustments
in the tuning. Well, after all, they had no place else to be, that
evening, there *was* no case to solve, and a little relaxation might
not be a bad idea. Mulder was disappointed, she could tell, and a
little annoyed with her. It would probably do them both good. She
smiled and nodded at him, as the singer tapped the microphone.
"Hi everyone," the girl said, pushing her hair off her shoulders
and smiling. "My name is Nicole White, and I'm going to sing a little
for you, while you enjoy your coffee and dessert..."
"Dessert?" The waitress asked Mulder. He shook his head.
"Not for me. You want dessert, or a drink?"
"Just coffee," said Scully, "Decaf?"
The waitress nodded as Nicole White began the first of the
ballads she would sing that night. Scully leaned on her elbows and
listened. The woman was very good, and Scully smiled wistfully as
the tunes shifted from ballad, to sea chantey, to old folk song. The
waitress brought a coffee urn to the table with the cups, and left them
on their own.
Scully glanced at Mulder out of the corner of her eye, and her
irritation gradually dissipated. Sometimes he tried too hard to
believe, it was true, but it was also that very single-minded devotion
to his beliefs that she found most endearing in him. She felt a
sudden rush of tenderness as she watched him fiddling with his
coffee. He was such a strange, frustrating and exhilarating man, was
her partner. And there were many occasions when she would have
cheerfully wrung his neck. But no one had ever stimulated her mind
and her imagination the way Fox Mulder had, no one had ever
pushed her to the very edges of her credulity, then dared her to jump.
She had not jumped, she would not jump. But there was
something... attractive about the dare. She had never met anyone
who could charge her with this sheer sense of adventure.
Scully sighed inwardly. Even this charade of passing
themselves off as a couple was more amusing than annoying, if she
was really honest about it. It was silly, perhaps, and a little
dishonest,
but she had protested more from a sense of propriety that because of
any real objection. She did wish he would not spring these little
brainstorms on her without warning, but still, she had to admit, it
*was* a pretty good ploy. She hoped she had not offended him by
her reaction, or by her subsequent squelching of yet another wild
theory.
"She's very good," Scully ventured, nodding at the singer,
trying to make amends. "This was a good idea."
Mulder looked up from his coffee, and smiled at her.
"She *is* good," he agreed. "Enjoying yourself?"
Scully smiled and nodded.
"I've always enjoyed this sort of thing," she admitted.
"Wishful thinking, mostly, I guess. I sound like something in pain,
when I sing..."
Mulder laughed, friends, again. He watched Scully out of the
corner of his eye as she relaxed into the magic of the music. He
knew she had followed him on this little adventure as much of out of
friendship as out of any burning desire to solve this puzzle, and that
knowledge successfully dissolved any lingering irritation he might
have had over the outcome of the trip. The truth was, Scully had
*never* refused to help him, no matter what her personal feeling
might have been about one of his theories or ideas. In fact, she had
often put her career, and even her life, on the line to assist him and
his work. As much as her skepticism frustrated him, sometimes, he
relied tremendously on her clarity of vision and her point of view.
He had also come to depend, emotionally, on her friendship, and
support. He knew that, too.
He leaned back into the corner of the booth and lifted his long
legs onto the seat. He took a deep sip of the hot and aromatic coffee
and sighed inwardly. They might not have accomplished what he
had hoped in coming here, but this was still nice. He and Scully so
rarely just relaxed together as friends. They needed to do this more
often.
Nicole White stopped her singing for a moment. Mulder half
expected her to announce that she was taking a break. Instead, she
smiled, as if deciding on something, then struck a soft minor chord
and closed her eyes. The ballad started slow, mournful and sweet.
Mulder closed his eyes and smiled:
"In Norwa land, there lived a maid
Baloo, my babe, this maid began
I ken na where your father is
Nor yet the land where he dwells in
"It happened on a certain day
When this fair maiden fell asleep
That in there came a grey silkie
And sat him doon at her bed feet"
Scully frowned suddenly, and shifted in her seat. Mulder
looked at her sharply, and watched memory play across her face. It
had been months since their journey to Shelter Island off the coast of
Maine and Scully's encounter with that extraordinary, seductive
creature who had come out of the sea to bewitch her, but Mulder
could see the beginnings of distress in Scully eyes. The being had
manifested some magical power that had held Scully in a kind of
strange, sexual thrall, leaving her helpless in the face of the
creature's
will. She had come close to losing her soul, and her life, to that
enchantment, and apparently the effects had not totally faded, even
after all that time. Mulder suppressed the urge to take her hand.
"I pray come tell tae me your name
And tell me where your dwelling be
My name it is Gud Hein Mailler
An I earn ma living oot tae sea
"I am a man upon the land
I am a Silkie in the sea
And when I'm far frae every strand
My home it is in Sule Skerry
"Alas, alas, this woeful fate
This weary fate that's been laid on me
That a man should a come frae the West o Hoy
Tae the Norwa lands tae ha a bairn wi me"
Mulder leaned toward Scully, this time putting his hand over
hers. There was no doubt in his mind that it *had* been a selkie that
Scully had confronted on Shelter Island. The creature had nearly
lured her into the sea to her death, and he did not want to put her
through the pain of remembering that encounter.
"Do you want to leave," he asked gently.
Scully looked at him, her face stricken.
"I'm okay," she insisted, struggling for composure. "I'm fine."
She smiled at him. "It's just a song Mulder, I'm all right. Really."
"Ma dear I'll wed ye wi a ring
Wi a ring ma dear, I'll wed wi thee
Thou may go wed wi whom thou wilt
I'm sure ye'll never wed wi me
"An she had got a gunner good
An a gey good gunner, I'm sure twas he
An he gae oot on a May morning
An he shot the son and the grey silkie
Scully startled sharply and rose to her feet as Mulder reached
out his hand to her again.
"Alas, alas this woeful fate
This weary fate that's been laid on me
"Excuse me," she said quickly, avoiding his grasp. She left
quickly, as the singer finished her song:
"And once or twice she sobbed and sighed
An her tender heart, it brake in three."
Mulder signaled the waitress and settled their bill. Then he
followed Scully out. He found her standing next to a tree not far
from the door, hugging her arms.
"Scully?" He came up next to her. "Are you okay?"
She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with tears, and
shook her head.
"Yeah. No. I don't know," she admitted. "God, Mulder, it's
like it was yesterday. I can feel it like it just happened. I can feel
that
*thing* calling me..."
Mulder put his hand on her shoulder, sensing the depth of her
distress, and remembering the reasons for it. He felt her trembling.
"It's okay," he comforted. "Just take a deep breath and relax.
I'm right here."
Scully nodded and closed her eyes. After a few moments,
she stopped shaking. A few moments more, and she straightened
up. Mulder dropped his hand. She took a deep breath and nodded at
him.
"I'm all right, now," she said, and he could see, this time, that
it was true. "I think it was just the shock. I didn't expect to be
reminded, and I wasn't prepared for the reaction." She shook her
head. "I hope I'm not going to have to spend the rest of my life
dealing with this," she sighed.
Mulder smiled.
"Well, it might be a good idea to stay out of bars with folk
singers in them, for a while..." he teased, trying to get her smile. It
worked. She laughed a little, and glanced up at him, then away
quickly. He could see a shadow play across her face.
"What is it?" he asked.
Scully shrugged.
"It's just a little embarrassing, I guess," she admitted.
Mulder made a clucking noise at her.
"Oh, come on. None of that." He reached over and caught
her chin with a fingertip, lifted her face until she was looking him in
the eye. "It's only me."
Scully gave him a strange look.
"No such thing," she said softly. Then she dropped her eyes.
Mulder frowned at her wonderingly. Scully cleared her throat
and blew out a breath decidedly.
"I'm ready to call it a night," she said firmly, and the moment
was broken.
Mulder said goodnight to Scully at the door of her motel
room, but she could tell by his eyes that he was still concerned. She
was grateful, and touched, but she was too tired, and frankly still too
agitated, to want to talk further that night. She wanted to be alone, to
think and eventually to sleep. Besides, she was in no danger. It was
true that the encounter in Maine had come very close to ending her
life, but the creature itself was long gone. Dead, probably. She had
probably killed it herself.
"I'm really okay, Mulder," she said, giving him her very best
reassuring smile. "I'm just a little rattled. It's nothing a good
night's
sleep won't take care of."
She reached out and squeezed his arm affectionately. Mulder
gave her a searching look, then nodded.
"Okay. Good night, then," he finally relented. "But call me if
you wake up, okay? Or if you have trouble sleeping?"
Scully smiled warmly. She nodded. Then she yawned, and
Mulder laughed.
"All right, all right," he said. "I'll let you go. Get some
sleep."
Scully merely covered her mouth and nodded. Mulder
watched her until she closed her door, then he went on to his own
room.
Scully might have been tired enough to call it a night, but
Mulder was still wide awake. He made a face at the television;
passive entertainment was not what he wanted. He thought about
taking a run, but that was not what he really wanted, either. His eyes
lighted on his brief case, and he sighed. The Colter ghosts were still
heavy on his mind, despite Scully's reasonable contention that there
was nothing they could do. He needed to think, and he often did that
best with a pen in his hands. Opening the briefcase, he took out his
field journal, and made himself comfortable at the small desk in the
corner of his motel room.
Fox Mulder was perfectly comfortable with computers, and
technology. He used them every day. Nonetheless, he still kept
certain anachronistic habits from his college days, and from his early
years with the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit; habits that relaxed him
and helped him to think. One of those habits was keeping his field
notes "in hand." Scully had teased him, at first, about this
peculiarity, pointing out how much easier field reports were when
one could cut and paste from a "word" document. But she had come
to understand that writing and thinking were often synonymous to
her partner. She stopped giving him a hard time.
Mulder opened the small loose-bound notebook he used as a
field journal, and stared at the blank page, the end of his pen resting
on the bottom lip of his mouth. Then he sighed, and started to write:
"Although nothing conclusive could be learned at the Colter
farm this afternoon, the story told by David Bowman concerning his
aunt's and his own alleged encounters with the spirit of Catherine
Hewlett do agree with accounts of spectral encounters recorded by
parapsychologist Han Holzer, as well as others. It is Agent Scully's
contention that Bowman's alleged encounter is merely his mind's
way of dealing with the trauma of his apparent rape as a child. While
this contention is both valid, and likely accurate, I cannot help but
feel that Bowman is completely sincere in his belief that he was
'rescued' from this heinous attack by spectral intervention.
Moreover, his story does resonate strikingly of other reported
spectral rescues...
"I remain convinced that the deaths on the Colter farm
property are the direct result of the attempts to sell this parcel toward
the end of tearing down the house, and that they are the defensive
reactions of the spirits of Catherine Hewlett, and possibility Jeremiah
Colter.
"Phantoms, ghosts, spirits, by whatever names they are
called, these phenomena are generally believed to be the emotional
and psychological detritus of lives that have ended through some
trauma, or with earthly issues left unresolved. They are, in effect,
pieces of a consciousness left behind to re-enact the trauma, or
attempt resolution of the issue, over and over, for eternity. While it
is
undoubtedly their great, though unconsummated, love that continues
to bind Catherine Hewlett and Jeremiah Colter to this realm, I believe
that it is the house, itself that provides the anchor keeping their
spirits
on this side of what Dr. Holzer refers to as "the veil". As long as
attempts to transact a business deal that will result in the destruction
of the house proceed, I am convinced that the deaths will continue.
"One must ask oneself, in all of this, if the ghosts, themselves,
would not be 'better off' if the house was simply destroyed, and if the
intervention of a psychic to assist them back across the line between
life and death might not be the kindest thing. How terrible it must be
to go through eternity seeking to reconcile a love that was never
completely and fully expressed in life..."
Mulder put down his pen, and rubbed his eyes wearily. He
stretched, then leaned forward against the desk and stared into space,
his fist pressed thoughtfully against his mouth. It took him a
moment to realize that he was not staring into space after all. The
blank wall upon which he gazed was the one that separated his room
from Scully's and he wondered if she had been able to get to sleep.
He felt a sudden rush of tenderness and concern, and a restless desire
to go check on her. He subdued the urge, guessing that it would not
be too well received. Still, he hated the thought of her over there,
alone, wrestling with whatever demons might have been stirred up
that night. He shook his head in frustration at his own inability to
comfort and protect her.
Protect her, he groaned to himself in amusement. She would
undoubtedly *love* to know he was worried about *that*. He
smiled to himself and picked up his pen again:
"I do not anticipate that Agent Scully's and my scheduled
visit to examine the interior of the Colter farmhouse will yield any
more conclusive evidence of spectral inhabitation than was gained
today. It is extremely rare for persons not psychically sensitive to
witness a spectral manifestation. The fact that both Bowman and his
aunt claimed to have seen evidence of the ghost of Catherine Hewlett
actually lends credence to Bowman's story, as psychic sensitivity
tends to run in families. I make no claims to such sensitivity for
myself, however, and I am equally sure that Agent Scully, were she
asked, would insist, also, that she is free of any psychic powers..."
Mulder smiled to himself, imagining Scully's reaction to such
a question.
"However," he finally concluded, "the opportunity to tour a
bona fide haunted house is just to tempting to pass up...."
Despite her agitation, Scully had very little trouble falling
asleep. She took her time with washing up, and got herself organized
for morning. It was not particularly necessary that she do so, this
was not a real case they were investigating, there was no need to be
out the door at first light, but the routine was soothing. She thought
about packing, but their plane did not leave until 2:00 pm the next
day, and there would be plenty of time to do so once they returned
from the Colter farm. Their plane. Scully sighed and shook her
head, wondering what the chances were that their absence would
remain undetected, and that a summons from Assistant Director
Skinner, demanding an explanation, would not be waiting for them
when they got back. She considered that it had, perhaps, not been a
very good idea to follow Mulder up here. Except that God only
knew what kind of trouble he would have gotten himself into if she
had not.
Scully laid out jeans and a work shirt for the next morning -
she was not going to get caught out in that field, again, in business
wear - then glanced over at her laptop computer. It was her habit to
spend some time each night before going to bed compiling her field
notes from the day, but in this case there really was no need. There
*was* no case, if they were lucky no one even knew they were there,
and no report to Skinner would be necessary. In any case, Mulder
would be making copious notes, she was sure, and if he needed her
impressions, he would ask for them. She crawled into bed, switched
off the table lamp, and was asleep as soon as her head touched her
pillow.